Many textile treatment techniques incorporate subjecting textile fabric to hot air in order to air dry the fabric, to set the fabric, and, in many instances to cure chemicals with which the fabric may have been treated. Such techniques often result in contaminated air being released to the atmosphere from the process equipment raising environmental problems, which, because in part of governmental regulations, have become of increasingly greater concern.
It is known that by raising the temperature of air to be discharged by process equipment to a high temperature, for example, 800.degree. F., that most, if not all pollutants in the air will be burned or incinerated destroying their toxicity. This however requires reheating of the discharged air to obtain the necessary high temperature resulting in use of additional energy which in many instances more than doubles the energy requirements needed to treat the product alone.
Attempts have been made to recapture part of the heat utilized in incinerating pollutants in contaminated air so that it could be used in the treatment of the product. Such attempts have used heat exchangers which has not all together been successful because of the heat losses involved in transporting exhaust contaminated air from the process equipment to a fume incinerator and then back again to the process equipment or to a heat exchanger.
It is therefore an object of my invention to provide for a combined oven and fume incinerator and a method of operating the same for treating a product which will utilize a minimum of energy necessary to maintain the desired air treatment temperature and at the same time provide the higher temperatures necessary to assure complete incineration of all the pollutants.